


The Visit

by Lassarina Aoibhell (Lassarina)



Category: Lost Odyssey
Genre: F/M, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 18:22:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassarina/pseuds/Lassarina%20Aoibhell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah looks forward to Kaim's visits, once every decade.  She simply hasn't told him why she anticipates them so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Visit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dawn](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Dawn).



Sarah wrestled the heavy basket through the front door of her house and kicked the door shut behind her. She set the basket down right in the hallway, unwilling to face the idea of hauling it the distance to the kitchen just yet. Sometimes having a monstrously large house all to herself was less than convenient.

She really should have taken up the Yelis boy on his offer to carry her market goods back to the house, but she hadn't wanted to appear incapable. It was a point of pride with Sarah that she could handle herself, even if she couldn't fight with a sword the way Seth or Kaim did so easily.

Though she was tempted to leave the basket right there on the floor and dive into the letters she'd picked up in the village, ingrained habit had Sarah pulling off her shoes so she wouldn't track dirt farther into the house and picking up the most perishable items to put away first. She was still working on a way to get the Aqua spells to keep food cold for her; in the meantime, she did what every other resident of Tosca did, and contributed wages for some of the men to go up in the mountains and cut blocks of ice that were then hauled back and stuffed into large wooden boxes that helped keep the food fresh.

It took her four trips back and forth from the front hall to the kitchen—and who had thought that putting the kitchen in the back of the house was smart, she wondered?—to get everything put away, but once that was done, she scooped up the packet of letters, neatly tied with string, and went to the library to read.

Her library was a soaring room, with the ceiling twice Sarah's height, and she'd had bookshelves built along every non-window inch of wall that stretched from floor to ceiling. Five hundred years' worth of book acquisitions lined the walls, some stacked two and three deep. Many, she bought herself, often traveling to Uhra or Ghotza to see what they had to offer. Others, Seth brought her on the infrequent occasions that the captain could stay in one place more than five minutes, from as far away as Numara.

For all her eagerness, Sarah took her time untying the string and sorting the letters. The top letter bore Ming's distinctive, fluid handwriting, and Sarah set that aside as a special treat to be enjoyed last. The rest were a hodgepodge of missives from poets, scholars, and playwrights all over the world. Sarah sorted them according to place of origin, and was just about to open the first when she heard a knock on the door.

Her first thought was that one of the village children had been injured, and her steps were quick as she went to answer the door. But when she pulled open the heavy oak door, she saw not one of the villagers, but Kaim Argonar on her doorstep.

Habit had her checking him for injuries, given that his career often left him with wounds that would have killed anyone not of their five. Unlike the last time, he didn't appear to be bleeding or missing anything important, although his face was nearly gray with exhaustion and his eyes looked shadowed and hurt. Sarah opened her mouth to greet him, but couldn't seem to isolate one statement enough to speak it. Instead, she opened the door wider and stepped back, gesturing for him to come in.

He tried to smile, nearly achieved it, and she clasped her hands in front of her rather than reach out to comfort him. "I don't come empty-handed," he said, gesturing to the small pack that was all he ever carried.

Sarah forced a smile. "Guests don't pay for lodging in my house," she said as lightly as she could.

He didn't say anything, just walked in and closed the door carefully behind him before bending to take off his boots. They were new, Sarah saw, barely scuffed.

His pack started to slide off his shoulder. Sarah grabbed for it before it could crash to the floor, and was startled at its weight.

"I told you I didn't come empty-handed," Kaim said, and did manage a faint smile this time. "Seth sent some wine she swears is the best she's ever had, and Ming sent some Numaran delicacy. Gongora gave me some device he wanted you to test for him."

Had it been ten years already? Sarah counted backwards, and was surprised to realize that it had. Kaim made a habit of visiting each of them once a decade, coordinating their efforts to learn more about this world and ensuring that everything was all right for them. She looked forward to these visits, to the chance to spend a little bit of time with him, even if he only saw it as a business meeting.

Kaim wrestled his second boot off, and reclaimed his pack from her, barely seeming to notice its weight. "The wine should be cooled, Seth said," he said.

Sarah nodded and led him toward the kitchen. He smiled when he saw the icebox, beaded with condensation. "Still haven't perfected that spell?" he asked.

"It's stubborn," Sarah said, but didn't go into the details. No one else would care about the difficulties of mastering magic energy and getting it to sustain itself. Perhaps Gongora might have understood, but he had always seemed more interested in presenting his own research than listening to hers.

Kaim set his pack on the broad counter and began pulling out items. There were two bottles of wine, which he placed in the icebox, and a wooden box carved with the crest of Numara that he set on the counter. Finally he extracted a cloth-wrapped bundle tied with strings whose knots were sealed with black wax. She could make out the imprint of Gongora's seal in the wax.

Kaim held the little bundle out to her, and when she took it from him, she tried not to start at how warm his hand was. The little package emitted a barely audible hum, and she could feel the bright pulse of magic energy inside it. That energy was distressingly less plentiful here than on their own world, and even the simplest spells—things she could do without thought at home—took a great deal of time and concentration here. Gongora felt the loss of magic more keenly than she or Ming, and had spent much of his time researching this world's magic rather than its people.

She tucked the package into one of the pockets of her skirt, and busied herself putting away the items that Kaim had brought. For such a big man, he took up very little space in her kitchen. When she was done, she turned to face him, hands clasped awkwardly in front of her. She wondered when it had become so hard to be around him.

Kaim never said much anyway, being one for monosyllabic answers if possible and single sentences if not. Sarah bit her lip and cast about for a topic of conversation. "Did you want to freshen up?" she blurted out. "I can—"

He looked at her gravely. "I don't want to put you to any trouble," he said.

"It wouldn't be." Sarah started for the door. "The same room you've used before—I'll change the linens, and—"

"Sarah, there's no need to fuss." He rested his hand on her shoulder, and she could feel his warmth like the full brunt of sunlight on a summer day.

"Oh—well—if you want to," Sarah said.

He almost smiled, and picked up his pack, now significantly lighter. "I'll see you in a bit," he said.

Sarah retreated to her library, and passed the time with her letters. Gongora's artifact she left unopened on her desk, awaiting time to take it down to her workshop and experiment with it in a controlled environment.

She could hear water rushing through the pipes, and allowed herself a small smile. That much, she had been able to accomplish: taming Flare spells and Aqua spells to re-create the comfortable bathing chambers of her home world. Her first century here had been spent hauling water and building fires to heat water, and the practice had grown stale after a week or so. When she finally accomplished it, the other residents of Tosca had admired it so much that she'd ended up installing the system in each of their homes.

While Kaim bathed, she read through the letters that had come in from Gohtza. The snow-bound city was experiencing a flourishing of the arts, having at last laid to rest its most recent five-decade conflict with Khent. Sarah was delighted to see the way that her correspondents were taking advantage of the situation to create beautiful things. She read their poetry aloud to herself, softly, and savored the taste of their words.

When she had finished reading the letters from Gohtza, she put them neatly away in her desk. Then she went to her bookshelf and reached for the journal she kept for recording events in Gohtza as they happened. Sarah wasn't a tall woman, and she found herself stretching on tiptoe and then jumping to try to reach the journal. She didn't even hear Kaim enter the room.

"Let me, Sarah," he said, and stretched past her easily to retrieve the journal. He held it out to her. "Here."

"Thank you," she said, head ducked to the side. It was only in the last couple of decades that her library had expanded beyond what she could actually reach, and she wasn't used to hauling the little ladder around with her.

Kaim's fingers brushed against hers when he handed her the journal. Sarah smiled up at him.

"Your library has grown since I was last here," Kaim said, looking around.

"I've been trying to assemble a comprehensive history of this world," Sarah said. "It's hard, since the winner of any given conflict writes the most accounts of it, but I think I've found enough secondary sources to assemble a balanced viewpoint. If we can understand what drives them to fight each other, perhaps we can understand what's causing their world to bleed over into ours."

Kaim looked like he might want to say something sharp and to the point about the reasons the people of this world went to war, but he bit back the words and shook his head.

"We each seek to understand in our own way," she said.

"That is why they sent all of us," he agreed. His fingers curled around hers beneath the journal, warm and callused from his sword. "To get different perspectives."

They stood there for a long moment, hands clasped. Sarah thought the silence loomed over them like the mountain towered over Tosca, shelter and threat combined. She thought of a half dozen things to say, but none seemed right.

Kaim's other hand came up and rested lightly against the side of her face. Sarah tilted her head into his warmth, feeling the contrast of rough sword-calluses against her skin.

"I have been looking forward to seeing you," Kaim said slowly, and she knew how hard it was for him to admit such a thing.

Rather than answer him with words, Sarah stretched up on tiptoes and pressed her lips against his.

Kaim's hand slid into her hair, pulling her close to him, and the journal pressed between them with hard and angular edges as she leaned toward him. She had thought, off and on, about kissing him for some centuries now.

She was pleased to find that the reality met her expectations.

When at last they broke apart, Sarah was half-lightheaded from forgetting to breathe. They looked at each other, and dissolved into laughter like children.

It bode well to be a good visit.


End file.
